Recap: While the citizens of Gargantia mourn their Commander, Ridget tries to deal with her new responsibilities. Meanwhile, Pinion and Ledo carry through with the fleet’s separation.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Most of this week’s episode focuses on everyone on the fleet trying to cope with the fleet splitting up and all that it implies. Ridget has to deal with losing her father figure and inheriting all of his responsibilities along with none of his respect, Ledo realizes it is impossible to return home, and Amy has to come to terms with losing her closest friends and the boy she loves. All against a montage of the fleet literally cutting their connections, it makes for a somber episode.

Ledo’s motivations are presented more favorably this time. While before he was shown as obviously in the wrong for wanting to destroy the Hideauze, now he explains that he wants to prevent Earth from ever having to become the sort of civilization that would abandon sickly children or go to war against unknown creatures. It brings up the question of whether he’s just making up excuses at this point to keep going in his crusade or whether he genuinely believes the things he’s saying, though the latter seems to obviously be the case to me. That said, the audience is still clearly supposed to be on Amy/Bebel’s side that Ledo’s going about this the wrong way.

Ridget’s plotline probably couldn’t have been more cliche if they tried, but it’s executed well and hits all the right points well enough that there’s little sense complaining about it. The burial-at-sea ceremony brings up some questions (where did they get the sand?), but none particularly relevant in a narrative sense. All-in-all, it was a well done episode and I’m looking forward to what happens next week.

Marlin’s Thoughts:
I have to agree with Iro that the part I appreciated most was that Ledo was not totally vilified in his decision to fight the Hideauze. I don’t even get why they give him such a hard time when they themselves recognize the terrible power they possess, and how powerless they would be to stop them if they went on a rampage. Unfortunately, the implication from Pinion’s words to Ledo made it seem that all he wanted was their destruction too. As Iro said in the past, the actual search for knowledge makes for a much more believable and admirable motivation than blind revenge.

I also don’t see why Ridget was getting so much trouble. Sure, she’s young, but before the death of the Commander she seemed perfectly capable of making decisions and having control over herself. That was also one of the worst speeches ever. Even if it conveyed her sincere desire to ask for help from her shipmates, she has to realize that the position of power should still never believe itself powerless, otherwise it loses respect. This is Gargantia though, so despite how weak she made herself seem, it ended up getting the desired camaraderie effect I imagine the show wants us to see. Next episode I’m hoping we get more information as to why the Hideauze are on earth. At this point it would seem that them coming from Earth makes the most sense, but then one would have to ask, how in God’s name do they survive in space?